The most amazing theory I ever read was from The Second Messiah, which is totally fanciful and speculative, but even as a work of the imagination its strikingly impressive.

What they said was that it's not fake, but its not exactly real either, in the sense that its not Jesus. What we're seeing is the image of a man who was tortured the way Jesus was said to have been tortured, including the crucifixion. But the man was a crusading Knight, and the authors even think they can name him: Jaques de Molay, commander of the Knights Templar. After being tortured he was wrapped in his linen shroud (one of the few personal possessions that the template owned) and he recovered to be put on trial and ultimately burned at the stake. The shroud was folded up and put away and then he image formed slowly over years, by some chemical process which the authors explained but I can't remember.

This explains the carbon dating and the apparent mystery regarding the details of the crucifixion injuries: traditionally Jesus is depicted with holes in his hands but apparently that does not actually work. The wrists must be nailed instead, as seen in the shroud.

They also claim to have proven that the mans knees were bent as apparently this is the only way to explain the proportions.

I doubt it was a very scientific assessment but it was still fascinating to read.They even claimed that the shroud first appeared in the possession of someone who might have been a relative based on the name (can't remember the details now)

Sounds like an interesting read, even if it’s largely speculation. The hands vs wrists question is a perennial puzzler, compounded by the fact that nobody actually knows exactly how crucifixion was carried out in that part of the Roman Empire at the time. However I got an interesting perspective on it when getting to know my wife who, as an Austrian from the countryside has a particular regional way of speaking German. One aspect of her local dialect is that she will often use the word “foot” (Fuß) to refer to the whole leg. So it’s not that big a stretch to imagine one particular group of Aramaic, Hebrew or Greek speakers at the time would use the same word for hand and wrist. This time, I am the one who is speculating - apart from the fact that the Greek word used in John’s Gospel to refer to Jesus’ hands (when He shows Thomas the holes) is the same word that Luke also uses in Acts to describe where the chains fell off from Peter [0], and often translated as “wrists”.

[0] https://www.gotquestions.org/nails-hands-wrists.html

That's interesting! I'm currently learning Hindi, and finding that the word for foot/leg is often interchangeable, too. (In Hindi, 'toes' is also usually expressed as 'fingers of the foot,' which I sometimes misapprehend as 'fingers of the leg')

That sounds like the most reasonable explanation.

I would be curious what Michael Shermer and others think of some of the more recent scientific investigations, as detailled by Fr. Andrew Dalton on Pints with Aquinas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAbuG-oVq1Q

I doubt he’d think much of it. I’m about 2/3rds through it. It’s all more of the same and not terribly convincing.

Fr. Andrew Dalton is a Sindonologist(?), somebody who studies the shroud, but not necessarily from a scientific perspective. Sindonology isn’t exactly embraced by Shermer in his article, or, apparently, by the scientific community in general. I hadn’t encountered the term before, but at a glance it seems to have all the scientific rigor of ufology or cryptozoology.

What I’ve heard so far in the video isn’t new evidence, but enthusiastic re-hashing of previous topics that have already been discussed to death. The video offers precisely the kinds of suspicious arguments that Shermer talks about. Exactly, in the case of C14 dating, “French invisible weaves”, and corner-holding-contamination.

I hadn’t encountered the AZ 1 & 2 C14 differences though and I’d be curious to get more details. He only briefly mentions them and doesn’t provide anything further. Fr. Dalton seems to point people to shroud.com which he calls “the most scientific of websites’ - that statement seems dubious at best, and browsing the site doesn’t change my impression.

I do appreciate that towards the end of the video that Fr. Dalton completely acknowledges that there is no evidence dating the shroud to the 1st century. All the other discussion around the “historical facts” surrounding JC, such as the kind of crown we supposedly wore, the kind of cross he supposedly carried, etc. is very eye-brow raising. The discussion of Eucharistic miracles and the prevalence of the AB blood type is similarly…interesting.

At the end of the day the authenticity of the shroud is a matter of faith. Evidence doesn’t seem like it should be important.

Setting aside religious discussion, what I found interesting is that the shroud has a lot of things that we simply cannot explain. For example, we have been unable to replicate the image as it exists (I think he said 200 nm thick), using highly advanced UV technology. If we can't figure it out now, how on earth would someone have created it centuries ago? I found other details, such as the absense of the photo-negative impression where blood stains were, fascinating.

I also thought the debunking of the 1988 "findings" made a lot of sense.

I'm not saying that it is "authentic" in that it is the impression of Christ from the Resurrection. What I am saying is that using our best scientific methods, we still have no explanation for how it came to exist.

I suppose I should ask, what kind of evidence are you looking for that would make something convincing to you?

Thanks for sharing this!

Something that amazes me about The Shroud of Turin is that if it was created in the 14th century, how did they create a photographic negative 400 years before the first known photographic negative was created in 1826 by Nicephore Niepce. It’s the most studied artifact in history and still no one knows how The Shroud was created.

People in the 14th century were no dumber than people living today, and painters like Duccio di Buoninsegna had a great understanding of shadows, and were capable of drawing amazing portraits.

They were absolutely capable of painting a negative of a portrait.

Of course they weren’t dumb, but having a great understanding of shadows is a far cry from being capable of creating a photo negative. They didn’t even have the concept of a photo negative. How would they even have thought to achieve such a thing? And for what purpose?

And, by the way, the image on the shroud is not made of paint, so contemporary proficiency with painting techniques hardly seems relevant.

Why would they need the specific concept of a photo negative? A negative is just a reversal of light/dark. They knew of such things. They knew primary colors, too. Painting and mixing colors is not exactly modern -- it has been around for many centuries. Artists practice playing with light and color as basic exercises, and have done so for hundreds if not thousands of years. Switching light and dark is a fairly basic concept to artists, not an innovation that required photography to exist in order to conceptualize it.

In the same vein, why would it have to be made of paint? Paint is simply pigment inside a medium. Dyes are also pigment, in different medium, made to soak into and bind with cloth instead of being layered on top.

I'm not saying that is how it was created, but I highly doubt that the skills to do so did not exist.

It was not dyed - the fibers that are discolored are discolored only on one side.

I have no idea, but that seems completely orthogonal to what technique was used.

It’s extremely relevant to the question, which is what the negative nature of the image has to tell us about the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses (miraculous hypothesis vs fraud hypothesis).

In my view, it is a big problem for the fraud hypothesis because you have to explain why and how it was done. At a time when the idea of a photo negative was entirely unknown, and when there are no other examples of negative images, or even any mention of the idea of making such images, why would the fraudsters seize on the idea of making their fraudulent image a negative? There is no record of anybody even recognising that it is a negative until the 19th century. So, it’s not at all what you would expect given the fraud hypothesis. You would expect a straightforward image.

> At a time when the idea of a photo negative was entirely unknown

It was not called a negative until the 19th century when photography came about, because before that a photo negative wasn't a thing. Before that it was just a "painting with light and dark reversed".

> when there are no other examples of negative images, or even any mention of the idea of making such images

There are many examples. See woodcuts, for example. The concept of creating the negative of an image was common.

> why would the fraudsters seize on the idea of making their fraudulent image a negative?

Because they, and the intended consumers of their piece, were not stupid and all were aware of the pattern that a person would leave on a cloth. Presumably it was not more difficult to drape a cloth over a body and observe the staining pattern then than it is today.

> You would expect a straightforward image.

No, you would expect a straightforward image, because photographs weren't invented until many centuries later, apparently.

They inverted the colors because they were creating a painting of an impression of a face on a piece of cloth.

If you put a piece of cloth on your face, the parts of the face that touch the cloth are the ones where color would be transferred from your face to the cloth, and which are therefore darker. The parts of the face that are more recessed, like the areas around the eyeballs, would not touch the cloth, and so less or no color would be transferred from the face to the cloth in those areas.

In other words, the part of the face that would receive more shadow in a normal image (and would be darker) would receive less pigment in the painting (and would be lighter).

A face impression would be very distorted when moving from a 3D face to a 2D sheet. So it is not an impression.

I didn't say it was an impression, I said it was a painting of an impression.

I don't see why the miraculous hypothesis gets to get away with not explaining why and how the miracle was done. Why should we reject it being a fraud just because we don't know how it was done, while accepting a miracle which we also don't know how was done?

I think it's pretty common (maybe even required?) not to know how a miracle was done. The whole point seems to be that it was not done by known means.

That doesn't make it any more reasonable to accept as an explanation.

> In my view, it is a big problem for the fraud hypothesis because you have to explain why and how it was done.

Why is it hard to imagine the perpetrators just painted a model with red ochre and draped a cloth over him?

And you are misunderstanding the burden of proof, fraud is merely one possible explanation. Even if you show that its real blood instead of paint, how do you demonstrate that its not the impression of a dead medieval knight and was later mis-interpreted as a shroud of Jesus after the original creation was forgotten?

Those who would claim its actually the shroud of Jesus have the burden of proving it could possibly be old enough, that it could have been woven by peoples of that time, that the red ochre is actually blood, that Jesus actually existed, that he was crucified, and that he was laid in this shroud and its his blood.

And even then that doesn't show he was resurrected, or that he was divine, or a god, or anything to that effect. We have a ton of evidence Jesus wasn't, his own failed prophecy of the kingdom of heaven coming before the disciples passed, and his crying out for god on the cross.

Mostly we have the fact that the super active, super public god of the bible disappeared after all these stories were written and hasn't been seen since, despite claiming its the most important thing in the world that people know he exists. Essentially damning more than 90% of all the people who have ever lived to hell.

you can ask this for any non- photorealistic art.

They did not know primary colors. They weren't discovered until the 19th century, even then it took another 100 years before they figured out that red blue and yellow are not the primaries.

They were very familiar with rubbings where you place paper or canvas on a sculpture or incised surface and rub charcoal on it to capture the image. The result is very much like a negative.

A negative is just an inversion of the intensity of visible signal. It even has a manifestation in common experience. Stare at something for a long time, then look away. A negative will superimpose on whatever you're now looking at it. I can't think of a good reason humans of the past should not have been able to reproduce this kind of effect artistically.

"being capable of creating a photo negative"

You're calling it a photo negative. It's not a photo negative. It's a painting that has shadows and lights inverted.

"the image on the shroud is not made of paint"

It's made of red paint.

Not true at all. No red paint in it.

This has been conclusively, scientifically debunked multiple times.

Please provide sources.

Wikipedia's recap indicates compelling evidence of medieval origin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#Scientific_ana...

Red paint that isn't visible under an electron microscope is some pretty advanced paint.

It's red ochre.

It could be survivorship bias. All the fake shrouds with botched images were recognised as fakes and thrown out long ago. Only this one which happens to look vaguely realistic has been kept.

Plus what must have been lost in 500 years, all photonegative pictures, fragments, descriptions, recipes, any references for such imagery etc. It is very strange that this is the only image that remained. And an image of a nude Jesus from the back. For which no other instance is known anywhere.

Xylography (woodcut) technique also uses negatives. The technique is ancient in China and it has been attested in 13th century Europe

A photo negative in a single color is not a tough concept to stumble upon if you ever carve something to be thin enough to let light through.

Bas relief and the play of light and shadow have been used since humans have tried their hand at carving. Seeing the impression a wet face left on dry cloth would be sufficient to tickle artistic inspiration, but actual artists, who spend their time thinking about how things appear and how to capture them in their respective media would have all sorts of opportunities for capturing the negative of an image, even if they wouldn't have thought of it in those terms.

There are plenty of examples of engravings, carvings, intaglia, and so on that used what we consider to be a "negative." There's nothing particularly special about flipping an image, transposing light and dark, inverting the 3d characteristics, or otherwise reversing different aspects.

Specifically, the inverse image might be carved for a wax seal ring or imprint, or it might be carved for a decoration stamp used in cement, or a mold for jewelry or ceramics. There are plenty of examples of things all throughout history that provide opportunity to inspire an inverted or "negative" image; it's simply our context of photography that is novel.

If I had to choose between (a) an artist who decided to invert the light/dark palette to achieve a dramatic effect or (b) it actually wrapped God and the moment of His death it left pigment on the cloth, I'm going with (a) every time.

If you want to get Bayesian on it, the base rate of confirmed art forgeries and religious artifact forgeries is non-trivial, but the base rate of confirmed creators of the universe manifesting has human form is zero.

It's sort of semi-3D. Reasonably good imitations have been made by molding linen to a shallow sculpture (aka a bas-relief) and dusting it with pigment, which thus picks up peaks and troughs.

Not only a photographic negative, a photographic negative with proper depth that was painted on individual sides of the fibers of the shroud by something (likely heat). The fibers that are colored on this shroud are colored only on one side and they themselves are colored. There is no chemical deposition upon them, at least none visible to an electron microscope.

Recent research has discovered the "stroboscopic effect" in the image. The hands and feet are moving when the image was imprinted on the shroud.

Strobe lights didn't exist in the 14th century either.

Which priest or other religious zealot with a vested interest found this out?

Also, is the implication that undead Jesus was twitching rapidly and flashing on and off? That is kind of cool, perhaps I should get religion.

Setting aside the unnecessary snide commentary, if the image were made when Jesus was coming back from the dead, starting to move, potentially fitfully, as one would who hadn't moved for several days, would seem pretty normal to me.

There's a number of weird things that knowledge of their manufacture has been lost. The lenses of Gotland, Greek Fire and the Chinese Jade burial suits all come to mind.

I don't see that as a reason to Revere any item.

Anyone who has made the mistake of storing expensive clothing in a closet with a window (/me raises hand) can explain how the Shroud could have been created. An object that blocks sunlight from reaching a dark cloth will leave an unmistakable image of itself.

So the hypothesis here is that they hung a dead guy in front of a dark cloth for a few months, and also made sure that the details of his face somehow made it onto the cloth even though the light was silhouetting him? Or am I missing something here?

If it's a forgery, it could have been done simply by using whatever sculpted or hand-formed objects were needed to create the negative image. Basically a stencil.

Point being, people are way too eager to assume supernatural causes.

Is there much of a controversy about it being an imprint of a body ?

The 14th century theorem has long been debunked, as the Pray-codex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pray_Codex contains strong evidence that the shroud was already known in the 12th century.

The 14th century radio carbon dating is still by far the most accepted dating. Even the wikipedia article you linked describes the Pray-cosex as not being definitive.

IMO a plausible theory here is that imagery of Jesus's death with those "distinctive features" was already popular at the time and both artifacts are representative of that imagery.

The best explanation to what the codex depicts, is the shroud. Which could be a copy of an older shroud e.g., but the C14 dating has its flaws (burnt material etc.).

The Pray codex is listed under “fringe theories” in the Wikipedia Shroud entry. That certainly make it wrong, but it does make it a little more suspect than the c14 dating criticism. The c14 contamination arguments seem more than adequately addressed in the entire last 3rd of the article.

Yes, the wikipedia article makes an argumentation error. Even if the Pray Codex doesn't show the shroud, it contains a very unique depiction of a nude Jesus. So the painter of the codex with high probability have seen the exact same picture as what is on the Shroud now. This doesn't prove that the shroud is earlier than the Pray codex, but this is something an unbiased scientist have to try to answer. I find it very annoying that all these very scientific-looking articles never try to explain how the hell is it possible that the Pray codex contains a depiction of the dead Jesus in a way, of which the first known depiction is from a century later in a photonegative form. Not to mention the other ridiculous arguments, that the shroud is one from the enormous amount of medieval forgeries. Where are all the other photonegative shrouds and pictures. I personally don't think that a supernatural creator omniscient etc god would create a photo of his resurrecting son, but I am really annoyed by all that bad science around the shroud. Ok, the C14 is real, because they told so (yeah, science never tries to find contradicting evidence, never challenges previous knowledge or belief...) but then you could still use Occam's razor to find simple explanations for like the Pray Codex depiction. At least please try to explain, why the drawing there is so different to all other drawings of Jesus in that era.

'Cause A caused both B and C? If you see the codex and the shroud contain the "same" information, doesn't it seem reasonably likely they got it from the same place? And people weren't bad at copying back then, so the "same place" could really be all over.

I don't think you can "debunk" something merely with strong evidence.

Besides that, I wasn't aware of this codex, so I'm glad you shared it. Has anyone suggested that (assuming there is a relationship) the arrow of causality might go the other way? That perhaps this image was a reference for the shroud itself?

The C14 dating is one evidence, and there are plenty of contradicting evidence for the 14th century dating. But my main point is that there is at least doubt for the 14th date, and any proper scientific approach should at least mention the codex.

This cannot be a coincidence, just watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8XRpeXopHY The Shroud of Turin is still Fake by Rebecca Watson (Skepchick)

But that video is one month old, so—?

It's not a coincidence. There was a "new" analysis of the shroud that came out last month.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/jesus...

That's the least asinine article I could find. It's even dumber than this article suggests.

Whether it is 14th century or an authentic relic, I still believe it's simply amazing to behold. We can explain what it's made of and guess at how old it is, and we can guess at its provenance and history, but there's simply no good explanation of how it was imprinted. The photo-negative imprint is nothing short of miraculous to me. Perhaps it's a miraculous forgery--doesn't matter anymore.

The crucifix in a local parish was commissioned just a few years ago, and the artisan who sculpted it in Mexico used the Shroud as a guide for the imagery. The painful stripes of scourging, the dripping of blood, the skinned knees, the pathetic expression on this man's face: they are all quite realistic and they perfectly evoke Christ's suffering for me, and for hundreds of other parishioners, especially the donors who contributed to beautify the sanctuary.

There are plenty of truly authenticated relics -- actual body parts of saints -- and I've come into contact with some of them. It's really amazing to have this connection to holiness. And you need to really understand the relationship of Christians with relics. The relic has no power in itself. The relic is not a miraculous talisman. The relic is simply a physical manifestation of a saint, who is very much alive to us. Though we cannot embrace such a saint, or hear them speak to us, they are present to us through the relic, and we invoke their intercession while touching the relic, because body and soul are one, and will be reunited.

My faith would not be shaken if this were proved fake. I simply don't rely on archaeology to prove my faith. Nobody should. I believe that archaeology and 99% of today's Scripture scholarship is an exercise in futility and misdirection. Live the life or don't live it. Be an atheist if you want. But don't tell us what to believe.

It's perfectly fine to consider it a beautiful and unique 14th century icon, even though its creators were aiming to get money/fame off a fake relic. In that sense, it might be the most remarkable fake in history.

And I also agree that faith shouldn't be based on physical proof or analysis of this kind, which is always subject to the specter of fraud or misunderstanding.

The point of understanding the nature of the Shroud of Turin is not to shake anyone's faith. It is simply to understand the truth (an important concept to any Christian) of an item.

Agreed, there's so much here to be thankful for on its own merits.

Both the fact that such fine and rare objects still exist, and our incredible techniques for studying the ancient past.

There's a conflict in your paragraph I wanted to point out.

> but there's simply no good explanation of how it was imprinted.

That's a strong claim! You are implying there is a miracle here, something science can't explain.

I can contest that, as you surely know. Imagine I produce an explanation here...

> But don't tell us what to believe.

The problem is that I can't produce an explanation without implying you should believe it: that's what an explanation is.

> but there's simply no good explanation of how it was imprinted.

I think i saw the word "paint" somewhere.

This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode "Rightful Heir", where Kahless returned to unite the Klingon people. It turned out he was a clone and not the "real" or original Kahless, but in the end, it did not matter. Faith and spirituality transcends historical authenticity.

That's a fun little plot that extends into Star Trek DS9, in "The Sword of Kahless" they find the sword, but this time it turns out that it actually is the original sword, but instead of uniting over it, it threatens to divide the Klingon people, and so they leave it drifting in space.

I welcome well-founded scientific articles about the Shroud of Turin like this, as I have read many unsubstantiated claims, both on one side and another: believers see traces of Roman coins laid on the eyes, and skeptical conjecture phantasies about weird ways a super-intelligent forger could have laid the paint on the Shroud.

However, the article fails to mention some details that make the matter not settled, at least in my opinion.

First, the position of the holes in the hands differs from the common belief at the time. Virtually all Western Art depicts the nails entering the palm, yet the man of the Shroud has holes in his wrists. Experiments on dead bodies done in the XIX century demonstrated that only when the nail is put in the wrist the weight of the body can be sustained, but this was unknown in the XIV century. Moreover, there is a nerve in the wrist that, when injured, causes the thumb to retract; this, too, is consistent with the Shroud but differs from the common imagery used in the Middle Ages. (See, for instance, Grünewald’s Crucifixion [1].)

Second, the article fails to mention a paper by Rogers (2005) [2] that applied a non-invasive form of dating to the Shroud. According to these results, the borders of the Shroud are younger than the part in the center (where the image was impressed) and were probably patches added to repair the damage of a burning. This seems to be confirmed by microscopic analysis of the fibers of the samples used in the C14 tests, which do not match the images of the parts of the Shroud that contain the image. Unfortunately, the author states that his dating technique is powerful for relative dating but not absolute dating because of the large error bars. Thus, Rogers could not provide reliable dating.

The most significant difficulty in believing the Shroud’s authenticity is the lack of documentary sources in the first Millennium. However, unlike the author seems to believe, the question might not have been settled definitively by the C14 measurement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isenheim_Altarpiece

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00406...

I don't get why it couldn't just be anybody's shroud. Didn't everyone at that time get a shroud.

There was never a time in which "everyone" got a shroud. Even in Jesus's time, burying someone in a shroud was a distinctly Jewish custom, and using linen did not become fashionable until after Jesus's death [1] [2]. Furthermore, for a crucifixion victim to be buried at all, let alone in a shroud, would be extremely unusual. It was generally part of the punishment for the body to be left on the cross after death to be displayed and consumed by scavengers. When the remains were finally removed they were generally disposed of in mass graves. [3]

[1] https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5282847/jewis...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel

[3] https://www.mercaba.org/FICHAS/upsa/crucifixion.htm

Sure. Not everyone globally, just everyone in the "distinctly Jewish" culture

OK, for that definition of "everyone" then yes, it's probably mostly true under normal circumstances. (Poor Jews may have been buried without shrouds, I don't know.) But 1) being crucified was not a "normal circumstance" and 2) linen did not become common as a material for burial shrouds until many years after Jesus died.

First of all, the thing is not a shroud, it's essentially a 14th century painting, created as one of a myriad fake relics for money and fame.

Second of all, if you believed it were a real ancient shroud, you would have to explain how the image on it was produced. Corpses don't leave images on shrouds, and even if it were true that everyone in ancient Israel were wrapped in a linen shroud when they died, people certainly didn't paint those shrouds.

> Second of all, if you believed it were a real ancient shroud, you would have to explain how the image on it was produced. Corpses don't leave images on shrouds

Well, they have haven’t they? I think you need to put yourself in the shoes of a believing Christian/catholic. There is really no need for them to try and explain scientifically what is explained miraculously. From the miraculous POV the act of resurrection itself may have created the image and since man cannot replicate that process, it’s impossible to explain it scientifically. But what we do know is that certain energetic particles applied to certain mediums do leave traces and can leave negative images. So even science helps to lend credence to their theory of a miracle

So if it is an ancient piece of cloth and there isn’t a scientific explanation yet that adequately explains how the image could be produced and since you cannot prove that a God does or doesn’t exist…a believing Christian can easily rely on faith that it is what it is purported to be.

So it’s up to you to prove them wrong, not up to them to prove that they are right.

You've got the burden of proof backwards there. It is absolutely up to those who claim the shroud is that of Jesus to prove it.

Nah, it’s not a court of law and the burden of solving the mystery lands on the shoulders of the unbelievers. It’s a sacred relic of a specific belief system—sacred to those Catholics who already believe it is real and are further encouraged in the validity of their faith by its existence. I am sure that probably none are Christian just because of the shroud, so even if it was proven to be a 14th century creation, that impact would probably not shake anyone’s faith. It just becomes “not a mystery” to them.

So the burden solely lays at the feet of the unbelievers. They are the ones that have the burden of proof, because until they can truly prove that it’s not what it purports to be, the mystery of it convicts them in their unbelief.

Not really. The "shroud" is just one of a million other relics, some true pieces of saints' bodies, some others medieval forgeries like it . Both believers and non-believers should agree on the scientific evidence about this particular object. The first person to call it a forgery was, after all, a 14th century Catholic bishop, to which the Pope at least partly acquiesced (forbidding the church that housed it from calling it a holy relic, but allowing them to continue displaying it).

The only entity that would lose something by the "shroud" being recognized for what it is is the Savoy noble family who used it in their story of legitimacy, for all that's worth, and perhaps the church in Turin that houses it. It doesn't matter all that much to believers or non-believers otherwise.

For believers, the miracle of the Resurrection is attested in myriad other ways, and a real relic of it would at best be a beautiful holy reminder. For non-believers like myself, the resurrection is beleieved to have never happened through much more convincing arguments, so the shroud can't be anything but a fake. How and from what time exactly is an interesting curiosity, like the Voynich Manuscript, but it is not some grand mystery. It would be literally impossible to scientifically ascertain it was Jesus Christ's shroud, a Holy relic of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, so even if it had turned out that it was not a 14th century forgery but a genuine 1st century shroud, it still wouldn't have constituted proof (or even very convincing evidence) of Christianity.

> Both believers and non-believers should agree on the scientific evidence about this particular object.

Sure, you would want that, but what does the science actually say at this point? Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century. That calls the earlier dating tests of the shroud cloth into question that might have proved scientifically that it was a forgery. Apparently science also hasn’t adequately explained how the image was created either. So all science really seems to say is “we don’t have any clear answers yet”. So has science actually proven that it’s fake? It starts with that assumption of course because miracles cannot exist, but evidence of an obvious forgery is thin. That is why you will get a disconnect between believers and the non-believers. The believer doesn’t start with the premise that a miracle cannot exist so in lieu of other obvious forgery evidence, their faith in the existence of miracles creates the possibility.

I am interested in the controversy around the mystery more than the object itself. I personally believe it’s a forgery—not because I don’t necessarily believe in miraculous things (I am a Christian) but because I am familiar enough with the shenanigans of the church throughout the centuries to know that creating a relic is a means to an end towards increasing the power of the church. I find the emotional reaction to it of some non-believers more interesting than those folks who believe it’s real. That fiery motivation behind the desire to disprove the validity is fascinating. Why do they have that desire to prove a forgery of something that even the Catholic Church doesn’t take an opinion about?

> Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century.

Those recent news stories are based on a bogus study in a no-name journal written by people who invented the method they are applying to the "shroud". It is equivalent to citing a blogpost. The real science was done in the 80s, using a well-established method that is still the gold standard for dating organic material today, C14 dating, and showed what the historical record also shows: the cloth is coming from sometime in the 14th century.

So the evidence for a forgery is: extremely well-established science says it was made around the 14th century. The earliest sources we have on it, also from the 14th century, are a Bishop calling it an obvious fake, to which a Pope acquiesces. It only starts being considered a real relic almost two centuries later, after an up-and-coming noble family makes it their claim to fame and a political object.

So not only is the evidence of it being a fake pretty obvious, there is also no evidence whatsoever that would suggest it's not a fake. So it is quite annoying when people keep insisting otherwise.

And no, the fact that we're not sure what precise technique was used to create the image 650 years ago is not evidence of anything. I've already written multiple comments in this thread on this particular point, I won't repeat them again.

> The earliest sources we have on it, also from the 14th century, are a Bishop calling it an obvious fake, to which a Pope acquiesces.

That’s circumstantial evidence, not scientific. Like I said, I think it’s a forgery, but I don’t need it to be real. The flip side of that coin is I don’t need it to be fake either…so why do non-believers care so much to argue that it is?

What drives that need? What is so important or dangerous about the object that it must be revealed as a fake to the minuscule amount of Christians out there that believe that it’s not?

> That’s circumstantial evidence, not scientific.

Evidence is evidence. It's not proof, of course, but it's evidence that has to be evaluated, especially in establishing historicity, where experiment is impossible.

> What drives that need? What is so important or dangerous about the object that it must be revealed as a fake to the minuscule amount of Christians out there that believe that it’s not?

This "deep need" is an invention of users. Some people wondered if the object might be the real shroud of Jesus Christ, as it was claimed, or if it is a forgery. Others studied this question using the relevant scientific methods (carbon dating, studying historical sources, fiber analysis, etc) and came up with a scientific answer, with high confidence (but not certainty) it is a 14th century forgery. Literally all of the evidence studied points in that direction, with no credible evidence whatsoever suggesting otherwise.

But, some minority didn't like this answer, and keep inventing reasons why the original investigation (which many of them asked for) was wrong. When we encounter such invented reasons, many of us who care about the truth like to combat it.

So, in summary, it was Christians in the Catholic Church who asked for a scientific investigation of the nature of the Shroud of Turin. The investigation was performed, and it was deemed a forgery. But the Church and some others didn't like the answer of the investigation they themselves asked for, and are now making up facts and methods by which to "scientifically" show that it is in fact a real relic. Some people, both Christian and non-Christian alike, like to debunk pseudo-science wherever they encounter it. That's the whole of this thing.

> But the Church and some others didn't like the answer

The church does not have a position on it. You’re expanding the number of people of the religious side who really deeply care about it. And this forms my opinion of the motivation of those skeptics who feel the need to prove again or get heated when the topic arises that it’s not genuine—It feels like it’s less about debunking an object and more about debunking a church.

He's describing the average Christian's perspective, not saying what he himself thinks.

Correct, but it’s fair to say I don’t have an opinion on its validity at all. It may be, or it may not…neither of those states affect my own personal convictions.

The shroud isn’t really for the unbeliever, it’s for the believer…as a reinforcement of their faith.

The nature of faith rejects the validity of such burdens of proof.

In Catholic beliefs, understanding, intelligence, logic, and reason are significant virtues. The believer is not supposed to be unquestioning of the world and treat everything as a miracle, lest they lose their faith. Instead, they are expected exactly to seek to understand the world, and marvel at God's creation in all their understanding. Especially related to miracles, the Catholic Church has a dedicated office for investigating miracles to ascertain "true miracles" from fakes. Charlatans are not tolerated in the church.

I had the good fortune to have a Catholic upbringing and attend Jesuit school, and then to end up not believing in religion.

The Church officially takes no position on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. I suppose the authorities have no reason to make an official declaration either way. The Church has suffered embarrassment before trying to prove doctrine with science, or disprove science. Galileo comes to mind.

The "dedicated office for investigating miracles," now known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and before that the more familiar Inquisition, investigates claims of miracles. It accepts relatively few, between 2% and 10% depending on the time period and the type of alleged miracle. I don't know if that implies that "charlatans are not tolerated in the Church," though. The Church has tolerated quite a few charlatans over its long history, and quite a few frauds and people who bought or extorted their way to bishop, cardinal, and pope.

While you got it right that Catholic doctrine does not encourage or require unquestioning belief in everything, it does require faithful Catholics to believe what the Church tells them is true. Historically asking too many questions would land a curious person in trouble. These days the Church does not have the worldly power it once did to enforce its rules.

"The believer is not supposed to be unquestioning of the world and treat everything as a miracle"

Surely this is jest. I like the sentiment, but I don't find many Christians doing much questioning. At least not modern 21 century Christians. Old School Catholics or Jesuits used to be a bit more open to science. Even Evangelicals were more open to questioning and even allowed abortions. It was only in recent decades it seems religion took a more 'old testament, brimstone, fundamentalist' bent.

I had a Catholic upbringing. In my experience, such questions were said to be antithetical to faith. "No true Catholic", I guess.

I have not heard about this office in the church, but I'm sure they know who is paying their bills. When a petroleum company pays for a study about the sustainability of fossil fuels, one should probably consider who's paying the bill when evaluating the conclusion.

I was not talking about Jesus when I said "corpses". The poster above was suggesting that it might be an ancient shroud, but just some random Jewish person's shroud. I was merely explaining that that makes even less sense than the shroud being a miracle relic of the Resurrection.

Whatever else you might want to say about the shroud, one thing we know for sure is that it is not a painting. Analysis shows that the image is extremely superficial, only penetrating about 200nm into the fibres of the cloth. This is inconsistent with a painted image.

Could easily have been sprayed on.

This is a common technique done with a mouth tube in older times, a bulb sprayer later and an air brush most recently.

There is nothing on the fibers that is visible under a high powered microscope. Paint (even spray-paint) is quite visibly distinct from the fiber it covers.

When it is relatively fresh, or well protected. Who know what is left after 600 years of handling and sunlight exposure and being saved from a fire.

We have known paintings from the time period - the paint is still visible under a microscope.

Yes, because those paintings were preserved as paintings. And they were not designed in the first place to look like something other than a painting.

I was using "painting" in the broader sense of "man-made work of mostly bi-dimensional visual art".

I'd also say that I'm pretty sure the mysteriousness of the technique is way overblown. Sure, we don't know exactly what it was, but there are trace pigments on the cloth, and ~600 years of handling and being displayed without much protection, plus being doused in water ~500 years during a fire, will wash off pigments in ways we can't fully predict.

1. There is no known painting technique - even now, for getting this image onto the shroud. There were no pigments or dyes in sufficient quantity to explain the image on the shroud.

2. About the second point - it remains a mystery but that in no way makes the shroud itself a fake.

> 1. There is no known painting technique - even now, for getting this image onto the shroud. There were no pigments or dyes in sufficient quantity to explain the image on the shroud.

It still does not mean that it has anything to do with Jesus. There are plenty of things we don’t know how to make anymore.

I am not saying that it has something to do with Jesus. But if someone is calling this a fake, they should be able to demonstrate how something like this can be created

About the first point, that's true, but mostly irrelevant. There are many niche painting techniques lost to time. Even more so, no one can truly predict the effects 6 centuries of display and exposure and a fire will have on some obscure painting style. We know there are traces of pigments on the cloth, so probably at some point there was much more. It was almost certainly a much less convincing and haunting image at the time it was made, the centuries of wear have just hidden the more obvious marks.

The second point was only in reply to someone saying "but what if it was some random shroud from the 1st century unrelated to Jesus?", and I merely explained why that makes much less sense than even the miracle explanation.

Uv damage perhaps? Maybe make the imagery with selective application of sand and leaving it in sunlight?

Scientists have recently used a new x-ray imaging technique to date The Shroud to the 1st century. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13758359/amp...

That study [0] is published in a non-peer-reviewed journal with a very low impact factor, Heritage. Additionally, their findings suggests the shroud was kept within a very narrow range of temperatures to support the 1st century hypothesis, which makes it even more suspect.

Additionally, their findings contradict a very well established C14 dating technique, in an extremely well documented and thought out study, using 8 different world class laboratories, for which their only explanation is "contamination" (ignoring the fact that the sample is pristine by comparison with many artifacts routinely dated using C14).

Also, if you want to cite a study, maybe find the link to the study, not a Daily Mail article.

[0] https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/2/47

Believe it or not, it gets worse. The authors of this paper are the same folks who came up with this particular dating technique. And I can't find any evidence the technique has been independently validated. Not that that should count for much from this layman.

> That study [0] is published in a non-peer-reviewed journal with a very low impact factor, Heritage.

Haha, MDPI. lol. It’s worse than low impact factor.

These 8 laboratories shared the same sample collected from a corner of the shroud. The priests handling the shroud would always hold it by its corners. So the explanation is not as weak as it may sound.

The Carbon 14 dating process is not sensitive to pollution from, say, the sweat or sebum on the hands of people handling it. What's more, the sample was vigorously cleaned before analysis.

The article (the one that this thread is about, not the study) addresses exactly this. The author makes the point is C14 dating is widely misunderstood by non-experts who still decide it's within their expertise to find fault with the it.

Did nobody here read the article? The author covered this:

> … to distort the result by 13 centuries the threads employed in the mending would have had to have been more numerous than the threads of the part to be mended

Furthermore, the samples were examined by two textile experts, and later by a lab that looked for trace fabrics that could have affected the radiocarbon dating, and they all confirmed that the sample was the original fabric.

If only there was evidence that any such fibers existed. Alas, there is not.

The priests handling the shroud didn't stop handling it in the 14th century. The fire it survived by dousing with water was from the 16th century. There is no reason whatsoever that all 8 laboratories happened to find the same contaminants from the same century.

> you would have to explain how

No, you’re making this too complicated.

It happened miraculously because god is all-powerful and can do whatever, whenever. Boom. Solved. Easy.

I assume you are being sarcastic, but nonetheless worth pointing out that almost all miracles attributed to Jesus have some point and/or symbolic importance (e.g. to relive suffering, as an illustration of who he was, etc.).

A miraculous shroud just seems showy.

Honestly, how would we know what all the miracles were? For arguments sake, whether or not you are Christian, let us say that Jesus did wander around performing miracles. The Bible is certainly not an audit trail of everything he did. It is the stories that survived. There would certainly be a bias in which stories those were.

It seems reasonable to assume other miracles would have occurred that were not recorded, in particular considering that one of his teachings was to do good for its own sake, not to have the good be noticed by others.

You’re absolutely right and don’t even need to assume anything… right at the end of John’s Gospel [0] (i.e. in the Bible itself) we are told that Jesus performed so many more acts that you couldn’t possibly write them all down.

[0] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2021%3A24-...

The symbolic importance of striking barren a fig tree that had the audacity to not be bearing fruit out of season.

The usual interpretations are that the fig tree represents the people of Israel, the religious leaders of Israel, and/or the Temple-system. In Mark, Jesus curses the fig tree because it is not bearing fruit, then cleans out the Temple from being a exploitative financial business instead of a house of worship, then immediately afterwards the disciples observe that the fig tree withered. The implication is that the Temple-system is judged, which fits in with several other statements Jesus makes elsewhere (such as not one stone of the Temple being left in place, in Matthew, if I remember correctly).

I've also heard that fig trees had sort of a pre-fruit, so it wasn't unreasonable to expect something, but I don't know if that's actually true or not. At any rate, the symbolic interpretation is still valid. (And, having been conquered by Rome, perhaps Israel was not in a season of fruit, either, strengthening the symbolic connection.)

> you would have to explain how the image on it was produced

It was produced by Jesus Christ at His resurrection. He left it for us to see and ensured that its being set aside was recorded in Scripture (not with the others but rolled up in a separate place - https://biblehub.com/john/20-7.htm).

If you mean "how did Jesus create the image"? Well, I don't know, we can look at the image (as some have) and come up with some theories. My favorite one is the one that says it was in the moment that the angel rolled the stone away from the tomb Jesus briefly shone with light, imprinting on the shroud the image of His suffering. That's certainly not the only way it could have happened, of course, but I think it's a very fitting image.

That much we already know is false. The "shroud" was not produced at the moment of Jesus's resurrection, it was produced about 1300 years later. This is not in dispute by anyone who cares about evidence, as any good Catholic should. A human forgery should not be worshipped like a divine miracle. Stupidity is not faith.

The point I was making there was in response to someone saying that "even if it's a shroud, how do we know it is Jesus's shroud and not some random 1st century burial shroud", and I was explaining that random 1st century burial shrouds obviously don't have images of the dead person on them.

He smartly ensured that the shroud was exactly consistent with a forgery so that He could sort those with true faith from those whose belief depends on earthly evidence.

Unconnected to whom it actually is, the mystery of how the image was generated is enough of a mystery to keep digging for answers.

This is of course a false analogy. We don't have a record of ownership at all; there is no such list.

The shroud showed up in France in the 1300s or 1400s; it's unclear exactly when, because it seems several shrouds were circulating at the same time. When written sources start talking about the current one, they don't say where it came crom. Nothing like "here's this shroud, taken by A from B, who had it after C, who found it raiding Byzantium, who got it from...". It just appears suddenly.

Furthermore, there are records that the pope of the time required that the shroud be labelled as a replication, not an authentic artifact.

Well, to make that metaphor work with the Shroud, you have to add a couple of extra details:

1. Your father got it from your granpa, who really liked to boast about family treasures and often made up stories about his parents and grandparents.

2. The bible clearly says "Printed in 1956" in the back matter.

But of course, you are free to believe whatever you want.

"no point in looking for meaning."

You say it I think sarcastically. I'm not sure.

But not spending a life going down rabbit holes that are most likely false, is not giving up on searching for meaning.

It is just switching to more fruitful avenues to spend the limited time we have on looking for meaning.

That's not an insult, it's a criticism. The criticism is: your thing is not very good. What you're requesting here is that you should never be told that your thing is not very good. I know the feeling, you're not alone, I, too, hate it when people piss on my strawberries, and sometimes I feel like I have a right to request that they be less negative and more supportive. This is why we have privacy instead of everybody being overbearing and constantly back-seat driving and interfering in other people's business. We need room to breathe, including believing in stuff.

However. It would not be a really great world without criticism. It would be a world even more full of conspiracy theories and wacky viral social media posts about the government engineering hurricanes or archeologists digging up giants. Being right matters because indulgently anti-reason people don't limit it to what "works" for them, they go around pressuring other people to be similarly stupid. By the way, what does "works" really mean here? It's something like a need to have non-critical thought processes. That's fine, I think, even vital, but only in private. Bring those weird-ass thought processes out into the light, and then they should be criticized, otherwise we're heading toward folie à deux territory.

"Which is funny, because atheism is fundamentally and quite literally irrational. "

This sounds like the 'no you' response.

You didn't make any point.

Just because there are open questions doesn't mean there is a god. There are unknowns -> ? -> Must be god.

All of the same arguments you made also apply to aliens.

Even if I were to follow your argument as "there are unknowns thus god", I'm pretty sure it isn't the Christian God. The god that can create the entire universe, focused down on a few lost tribes and said 'you guys are my dudes, and only you'.

I made a point, but you got defensive and missed it. I’m not defending theism, I’m pointing out what I find to be an amusing irony about supposedly rationalist atheism.

I’m not pointing out open questions, I’m presenting offered answers. To the atheist that all these things happened for no reason at all isn’t an open question, it’s a definitively held belief.

> Just because there are open questions doesn't mean there is a god. There are unknowns -> ? -> Must be god.

> I were to follow your argument as "there are unknowns thus god

You are hallucinating an argument I never made. If you want to engage please address what I actually wrote. This has nothing to do with “god of the gaps” or any such thing. It’s simply highlighting the definitively held atheist belief that reason played no role in any of the given phenomena.

> All of the same arguments you made also apply to aliens.

This doesn’t make any sense. But sure an atheist might believe that alien life also evolved, once again, for no reason at all.

Or are you trying to propose something more sophisticated like that our reality is a simulation created by advanced aliens? Positing that our reality was created by an in some sense superior alien intelligence or intelligences does mean things didn’t happen for no reason at all.

It’s moderately interesting to compare simulationism with other intelligent design theories. I’m not going to do that here, but I will note that “supernatural” literally just means above nature, so vis a vis our perceived reality the creator or creators of the simulation would be supernatural beings. Similarly any admin actions they might take would be miraculous.

You know, you're only saying that it's in a manner of speaking anti-rational to deny the existence of a god who is, presumably, supremely rational. It's an amusing observation, but it doesn't follow that it's reasonable to think the being exists just because the being is supposed to be reasonable.

And this argument certainly sounds similar to the "God of the gaps" argument. Instead of "there are things science can't explain" it's more like "the scientific world view doesn't satisfy my gut feeling that things happen for reasons", but that's a similar kind of gap, just a more philosophical one.

The limitations of science say nothing about atheism or theism. However, the metaphysics of science firmly rest on the notion that things do happen for reasons and that those reasons are potentially knowable.

The rationalist view says that there are reasons for why the universe exists, why stars and planets exist, why life exists, and why occasionally intelligent life such as ourselves exists. That there are atheists who still hold the rationalist position is unsurprising, since it’s quite common for people to hold unexamined contradictory beliefs.

Certainly you can get to the monotheistic God from there, but there are plenty of other alternatives that avoid the things happened for no reason at all problem, such as panpsychism just to name one.

"rationalist view says that there are reasons for why the universe exists"

That might be some sub-set of some narrow band of 'rationalist'. But it is not a common viewpoint of atheist. So guess your point, that atheist aren't rational, using a narrow definition of 'rational'

I'd say the more common view atheist is that there are no 'reasons'. It is all physical processes, with no 'reason' behind it at all. It's all just cause and effect, the billiard ball universe. Quarks/Electrons/atoms/molecules. All just interacting with no 'reason'.

I think the nature of this argument wasn't with this view of universe, it was with which people you were attributing that did believe this way.

Why is there cause and effect? Oh, right, for no reason at all.

That doesn’t sound like a rational position to me.

Well at the point where you are going to question the flow of time, or why any law of physics exists. Then also, why even use words. What words have any meaning. What does the word 'rational' even mean. What is a 'question' to begin with.

This seems more like category errors, or applying words from one level of meaning to another level.

If you are going to go go that far, then nothing even exists to discuss.

"you got defensive"

I guess, if by responding, you mean 'defensive'. Any counter point is a defense.

I think maybe unwittingly, or maybe on purpose sarcastically, you are just playing with words. And maybe I lost the thread of the point you were making.

You're entire paragraph was about 'reason', and how physics does not allow for 'reason', or explain reason, that nothing that happens is because of 'reason' and thus atheist are irrational because physics is not rational.

Maybe you are just making a little joke, that Atheist just believe in a physical world, and there is no 'reason' or intelligence behind it, it is just all cause and effect. That they are 'irrational' because they are in the universe and the universe is 'irrational'.

You basically just made a common argument for Intelligent Design/God/Simulation Theory(the alien), take your pick. That because we can't explain things inside the universe with 'reason', there must be some 'supernatural' level beyond our first order natural world, that would have reason. Something beyond our own that has reason, in order to create ours that does not have reason.

But really, on re-reading your argument, and response. I am not sure. I don't know any atheist that believe as you say they do. So it seemed like a straw man, you are projecting an atheist belief to knock it down. Just because they don't believe in a god, doesn't mean we wont be able to figure things out, to find the 'reason' for why things are the way they are.

It is very difficult when picking up an argument mid-stride with a stranger on the internet. I thought you were making an anti-atheist point, which sounded like Intelligent Design/God/Simulation Theory. But maybe you were just making some observation on how humans can't know, because if the universe is all determined, then they can't break free of that to observe it from the outside.

-> Maybe you were making a little joke, the physical/real world is irrational, atheist believe in only a physical/real universe, thus atheist are irrational.

If you want to re-state your original point, that would be good.

I like this point. But what's the issue with defining life? I don't mean "which things are hard to categorize", viruses are, but it's beside the point, isn't it?

If you can get from deism, based on an argument about order, to belief in Jesus coming back to life and emitting radiation in the process, by a chain of reasoning, then more power to you. I can't imagine what the steps would be, but it's the kind of thing the Scholastics would have done.

> But what's the issue with defining life?

All of the working definitions beg the question in some form or another. And then there's stuff like this[1].

> If you can get from deism, based on an argument about order, to belief in Jesus coming back to life and emitting radiation in the process, by a chain of reasoning, then more power to you.

I can't, and I don't think any reasonable person claims that you can. My view of Christianity is that it is, basically, Greek philosophical monotheism (I'd quibble over "deism," preferring something like "philosophical monism," but it's just a quibble) with some vestigial Hebrew trappings plus historical claims based on testimonial evidence. The resurrection falls squarely in the historical claims area. It's hard to overstate the influence of Greek culture and philosophy on the Mediterranean at the time of Jesus' ministry.

[1] https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/shape-is-not-enough-t...

Go back and read the parent .

What I was responding to was the sentiment of doubling down on mysticism. "My parents beliefs are my beliefs, and that is correct, and so that's what I'm going to believe, and then teach my kids". No opportunity to grow.

Was pointing out that, a lot of people really spend a lot of years going in weird directions, so why not pause, look around, and figure out a better way forward.

Really, this seems to be the kind of response I get when others want the "freedom means free as long as they agree with me". But suggest thinking differently, and boom, can't have that kind of stuff happening, "not that kind of freedom".

Like if someone was a Satan worshiper. And I suggested reading the bible. Then that is good, people should be free to suggest that, and to change.

But if someone is evangelical. And I suggest that Satan might have made some good points, or the Bible actually allows for abortion. Then boom, that isn't freedom, you are corrupting people, we have to stop that.

Whoever manufactured the shroud was following the story in the Bible and made sure the image adhered the description of the crucifixion.

Do you have a bible with photos ? I only have one with text. /s

A text that mentions scourging, a crown of thorns and a spear thrust in the side of the body.

It does not prove anything either way with regard to it being genuine or not, as a later forger/artist would have followed that, but if it is shown to be a genuine shroud with genuine marks then it makes it probable it was Jesus's.

The Shroud of Turin always brings out the Ancient Aliens crowd.

The clergy in the 14th century were absolutely unmoored. Everything was for sale. You could pre-pay for absolution for future sins. They sold relics of everything - Jesus hair, even parts of the “burning bush” from the Old Testament. The first crusade brought back real treasures and relics that made the perfect pretense for a century of grifters.

That was all pretty much stopped later that century though by a few bad things like the mini ice age, papal schism, 100 years war, and the Black Death.

Clergy back then basically was a hacker culture- as in you get the suckers to buy some relic or immortality paperwork and have a nice life extracting resources and giving nothing in return.

They sold NFTs and shitcoins basically.

Seems pretty accurate, with the exception that relics seem to have worked as a much more official currency, in a context where the whole continent was severely lacking in coinage.

No, those were the restrained ones. They at least put some effort in making their relics credible.

The clergy in the 16th century literally wrote "Get out of Hell" cards and sell them for money. What made them stop was Protestantism calling them on their bullshit.